trailer hitches

hi all. has anyone installed a trailer hitch on their smartie yet? i'm thinking of getting a teardrop trailer but i'm concerned about aftermarket hitches. the weights would be ok. any ideas or thoughts? thanks

How easy is the install. My bike rack was a bear, had to go back to the dealer. Rear bumper had to come off!! Took the dealer 3 hours, which they were nice enough not to charge me. I was the 1st bike rack. Now they sell it with installation. Lots going on under the smartie.

hi boris. your link didn't work for me but googled curt and i see the hitch. i see the install instructions too. looks easy enough. does it stick out the back of the car under the muffler? and i seen to remember reading sonewhere the actual towing # of a smart is about 2800 pounds. car/passengers/cargo/ trailer. does this sound right?

The Curt hitch is a well made product. I installed one on my smarty recently, but the second one you install will go much quicker. You had better have some decent tools, and plenty of time. I got a Tag Along trailer from Harbor Freight on sale for about two dollars a pound. It weighs less than 150 pounds, a claimed 800 pound payload, and is lockable. You had better own a machine shop as I do, or you will be disappointed in this product without many small modifications. It tows fine, but is a devil to back up! Even with this trailer hooked up, it still fits into a regular parking space. Look out for lookielous on the road, and have fun.

Currently, the 40.5" x 48" Harbor Freight utility trailer is on sale for $179. This is the trailer I use. I have a uHaul hitch - got it installed about 2 months before curt came out with theirs (darn it), so I paid a premium, but not nearly what the original hitches were going for. It sits under the back bumper, and the hitch does not stick out, but once you put in the ball/slide, it does stick out a bit (and needs to). I wouldn't dream of hauling 2800 pounds with the smart - the smart doesn't weigh that much! Keep to 800 pounds or less, and remember that the clutch is meant for the vehicle - that added weight figures into lifespan a bit too.
I put a Sears XCargo car top carrier on mine normally - makes a great 18 cubic foot trunk, and I have pulled that all over the east coast. I also built some stake sides for it, for more general usage (and larger items) - either way works great, and you still only need one normal parking spot for it!
Not to push another site, but I posted a link to Harbor Freights current coupons on the SCOA site, under the towing forum.

Hi Steve,
We had a hitch (installed by u-haul) on our smart that we used to drag our motorcycle trailer with. We had absolutely no problem with the hitch or towing. However we have since sold the motorcycle and the trailer and have removed the hitch. If you are looking for a hitch, I could let you have it for $75 plus the cost of shipping. Call me at 585-948-9359 if interested.

We installed a Curt hitch on our smart Passion, and have had zero complaints with the device. It sits slightly under the rear bumper, and the hitch receiver does not protrude at all.

I had three reasons for the installation:

• Our smart can be used as a "hostler" when we do band jobs. While our "big" car (a Scion xB) normally hauls the loaded trailer, sometimes it is expedient to have a way to haul the trailer off to another (remote) parking area while the xB remains to finish unloading. Having a hitch on the smart enables that utility.

(One problem with the Curt hitch is that the hitch portion (that which the ball is attached to) is a solid bar of metal. As all of the anti-chatter hitch pins that I have seen only work with a hollow hitch, the Curt hitch is a bit noisy when you are towing. There are "external" anti-chatter devices, but I have yet to try one.)

• Our smart can be used to haul our future purchase Leesurelite camping trailer. We have been waiting to make that "investment" until we saw that our camping spot (Fort Pickens National Seashore, in Pensacola) wasn't going to be permanently damaged by the oil spill. As it wasn't, it's now a matter of making the arrangements to pick one up at the distributor, in the lower left hand corner of Missouri.

• The hitch makes for a wonderful spare tire mount. We got the "last of a breed", discontinued stock combination spare tire mount/carrier tray mount from a 450-centric supplier up in Canada, made some 451- centric changes (shortening the protrusion from the back of the car, welding the tire mount to the "hitch" portion of the kit, and adding our own lock system for the tire), mounted it on the car with an "anti-chatter" hitch pin, and there you go. Our original plan was to only carry the spare on "long trips", but since it looks so good, it stays on the car pretty much full time these days.

(I'm having a pivoting mount put together for me by a hitch company over in Florida (a contact of my daughter's), but I haven't seen the finished product yet. It will pivot downward and allow full opening of the tailgate (my current mount only allows it to be opened halfway).)

However, you have to be used to answering questions, in this case from smart owners when you encounter them.

Didn't I just answer that question. Teardrops are to heavy for a 2000 pound vehicle. You don't want to go over 500 pounds. Check out the timeout trailerhttp://timeouttrailers.org/default.aspx
Several smarties have had good luck with them

ewre erer erewr said:

hi all. has anyone installed a trailer hitch on their smartie yet? i'm thinking of getting a teardrop trailer but i'm concerned about aftermarket hitches. the weights would be ok. any ideas or thoughts? thanks

There are many who have put trailer hitches on the Smart. Uhaul makes a hitch for the car. When I lived in Dallas there were several member of the DFW Smartclub who pulled small trailers. If you go to smartcarofamerica.com/forums you will be able to find links to several trailers and pictures including some who even have small camp trailers. Best of luck. Let the fun begin.